Would you "caulk" a blind on place?

[Sighthound]

We have had some blackout blinds fitted, the concertina type that have an aluminium frame around the outside. They are fab but they do still let in some light around the edge of the frame, as there are small gaps due to the walls being uneven.

The bloke who fitted them said he does sometimes caulk around the frame to fill the gaps, but only if the customer requests it, and he doesn't recommend it as then you can't remove the blinds if easily if you need to. Which makes sense!

Then the sales lady on the phone then told me that he should have caulked the blinds in, and that they can come back and do it, FOC, if we want.

Now I am not sure what to do, I don't think I really want them caulked, but I would like to reduce the light coming in around the gaps.

Does anyone have similar blinds? What did you do?

I thought fixing some beading to the wall right behind the blind might do the trick, but I don't know if I am over engineering and should just let the man come back with his caulk?

IN place, not on! I can't edit the title of my post, alas.

If they are caulked in, would you still be able to take them out of the frame for replacement/cleaning etc?

How important is it, for them to be completely blackout, and how long will this be the case?

Ie for a permanent photography dark room I would caulk. For a growing baby I definitely would not.

Well, they've been put up in all our bedrooms. We are quite a light-sensitive family so we all sleep much better when it's properly dark and wake up easily when it gets light early in the morning. Adults and children included! So the intention is they will be up a long time, until they eventually need replacing. They are deliberately very neutral so I don't plan on replacing them if we decorate or anything like that.

However if we caulk them in and then want to replace our windows, I think they would need to come down (for example - we don't have immediate plans to replace our windows but they probably will need doing in the next few years).

I suppose I want to hedge my bets so trying to think how to improve the light coming around the gaps whilst also still having an option to remove them more easily than if they are caulked in.

Previously we had roller blinds with velcro fixing blackout fabric behind, but it was ugly and over time the velcro started falling off (and leaving horrible sticky residue around the window frame), so we replaced them. We have had these since my eldest (8) was a baby. This is an upgrade! 😊

No I don't think so, although they are low maintenance so shouldn't need to remove them for things like this (I don't think).

Also light sensitive, and I would absolutely caulk them in. If you're replacing the windows in the future, there's a good chance you will need to patch bits of the walls or the sill, and possibly touch up paint. Scraping off some caulk won't make much difference.

Caulk is actually quite easy to remove. I really wouldn't worry about using it to seal the gaps

It’s dead easy to remove caulk, I wouldn’t worry about that. I’d definitely have them caulked and then you can paint a neat line up to them in your wall paint.

We have these blinds, I don’t think ours are caulked in but we might get some curtains to put in front of them.

That's good to know, thank you.

To be honest caulking seems like the easiest option right now, as the company who fitted the blinds will just come out and do it (Vs trying to sort something ourselves) but I was worried it might make life more difficult in the future.

Appreciate the info!

Curtains is another option, but I like how clean and uncluttered the windows look now and I also don't really want to spend more money if I can avoid it.

How are you finding the blinds? We have only had one night with them so I wonder if we will get used to the bit of light that seeps through.

@SighthoundWe’ve only had ours for four days! I like them but I’m not hugely sensitive to light. DH is more sensitive and seems to think they’re okay. We had very thick blackout curtains before and I think they’re better than that (although the curtains were badly put up). The main problem we have is that they’re fitted in floor to ceiling patio doors and so if we want to open the doors at night when it’s hot, the light will obviously come in too. That’s the main reason we’re thinking of getting additional curtains (although I wouldn’t bother if it was just me). I prefer them without curtains though, when they’re up, it makes such a difference to the light vs when the curtains where drawn back because the curtains blocked the windows.